Do equipment stands have an impact on electronics?

1. There are plausible reasons why vibration reduction could work in solid state gear. A) Microphonics in the components, or B) You are actually hearing the preamp/DAC, etc. mechanically vibrate.
   
2. There are known issues with tubes and things that move like turntables and speakers.
3. There is almost no known electrical or acoustical measurements of vibration control being needed, or improving solid state gear in the audio/home environment.
4. As far as I know, the only "evidence" is from listener impressions. This doesn't make it false, it just means we have not progressed from subjective to objective yet. I hope that comes in the future.
   

I've always found that stands with speakers on them must have zero back and forward motion, as the drivers move this way.
Any back and forward motion of the stand will be lost energy being projected into the room, being waisted by the drivers instead trying to make the stand move back and forward, even in unmeasurable amounts.
You loose micro detail and screw up your imaging.

Had a few racks, homemade with nice wood and bought online, which held the equipment but offered little in sound quality improvements. Then I bought a Star Sound Sistrum rack and SP-101 platforms for my speakers. Both the rack and the speakers improved the sound considerably so that I was able to remove some traps and get great increases in clarity, transparency, and dynamics with no drawbacks.

IMO/IME its really important that that the system have the ability to not sound loud even when it really is. An orchestra can play peaks of 115db; the stereo should not add anything of its own during playback. At high sound pressure levels vibration can affect turntables, CD players and all electronics whether tube or solid state (if you think transistors are immune to microphonics you've not spent time working with them!).

So a stand with vibration control for the front end of the system (sources and preamp) is not only in the signal chain but can be considered a component in its own right.

I believe that maple has a profound affect with electronics, more so with electronics than with speakers. Try maple before you decide.

I can't say about hi-fi platforms, but maple is the preferred wood for drum shells because of it's desirable (for drums) resonance and timbre. Maple's resonance characteristic is of long sustain (when you hit a piece of maple, it rings for a long time), it's timbral character brightness. If one desires their support structure to produce no sound of it's own, I don't know why a wood known for it's long sustain and bright timbre would be a desirable material from which to build one. I am NOT saying I know why it shouldn't be used!

Thanks Geoff, great video. The drums I was describing are traditional wood ones, which is how bass drums (kicks) and toms are pretty much all made. Snare drums are a different matter, available in many different woods and metals.

Charlie Watts likes old Gretsch drum sets (he’s been playing a natural maple finish set on stage since the early-70’s), the "round badge" ones made in the original Brooklyn factory in the 50’s and 60’s. In the 50’s the shells were 3-ply, the outer two maple, the inner gumwood. In the 60’s the shells were 6-ply, with alternating layers of same. They sound fantastic! A lot of Pro drummers having endorsement deals with other drum companies play those drums on stage, but record with Gretsch.

Steel is a commonly used material for snare drums, but not usually high end ones. Brass is the preferred metal for snare drums by many, myself included. Saxes and other musical horns aren't made of brass for no reason---it sounds good! Can you imagine a steel sax?! How about steel cymbals (they too are brass)? I have three Ludwig’s made in the 1920’s (14 X 5/8-lug, 14 X 5/10-lug, 14 X 6.5/10-lug), one in the 30’s (14 X 6.5/8-lug), all nickel over brass (NOB), and fantastic. I had a spare 14 X 5/10-lug Ludwig Standard that Abe Laborial Jr., McCartneys drummer, bought (I used to deal in vintage drums) and played when they did the Super Bowl Half-Time show about ten years ago. Look for it!

Years ago I was fortunate enough to grow up surrounded by musical instruments of all kinds and had a few friends who also spent their lifetimes involved in music. Among those, Jay Thomas, a sound engineer by trade and incredible cabinet maker along with Dick Boak of the famed Martin Guitar Company. During those early years Dick was in charge of purchasing the exotic woods and adobe for the Martin Company. He exposed the looks of those woods to Jay who as a cabinetmaker would purchase some and build racks to elegantly hold all of our stereo gear. Initially we had no clue what was going on but soon realized that the denser the wood used in the equipment racks, the better our hi-fi gear sounded.

Fast forward to today. I am no longer a fan of wood racking when absolute sonic performance is the goal. A block of wood or shelving vibrates and produces frequencies well within the audible range of human hearing. We commonly refer to this noise as ‘rack chatter’. The company I represent prefers to use metals for the building of equipment racks where the frequency range of the shelves, support rods and metal cones vibrating is well above or far below that of the human ear’s capability of detection. We prefer to entirely remove the audibility of vibrating wood racks from the overall environmental formula.

Example: listeners always state that MDF sounds OK but a hardened maple sounds much better. When comparing the two, MDF is made of sawdust, air and glue (polymers-plastics) and produces a very wide and very audible frequency range when subjected to vibration. Maple is denser containing less air molecules, no glues and has the advantage of a grain structure where laminar resonance will flow along the grains pathway and locate an exit via metal rods (shelf supports) or cones hence establishing an energy transfer methodology similar to the technology we are developing for use in audio and video equipment racking.

As Maple produces less audible frequency byproduct compared to MDF, the question remains… Does the solid wood actually sound better or are we just hearing much less of the audible frequencies caused from the density of the Maple wood vibrating?

Second Example: We have worked with clients where the aesthetics of steel is not an option; to them wood is preferable. I generally suggest they sample mahogany. Mahogany is much more difficult to work with due to its high density as compared to maple but the end result in every case to date: the listeners preferred the mahogany.

Questions to ponder:

Do the audible effects from a more dense wood reduce the sonic signature that vibrating wood adds in a sound room?

Do denser woods actually sound more musical or are we hearing less colorations or noise? Keep in mind we are listening to a block of wood vibrate in a listening room environment and not that of a spruce inlay on a tuned up Martin guitar.

As evidenced here on AudioGon feedback, clients repeatedly state Sistrum Platforms dramatically lower floor noise. As well, the soundstage immediately grows north, south, east and west. Despite other technical functions present within the Sistrum design, metals used in racking reduce the resonant frequency of wood via mechanical grounding and remove the effects leading to audible rack chatter hence providing the speaker system with more open space to play into.

There are many who say they prefer the sound of wood in their systems and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that assessment or enjoyment, however until one attempts to remove or reduce rack chatter one may never know the full sound capability of their electronics and loudspeakers. We are extremely confident one will definitely and easily hear the differences.

Robert

Star Sound

            Massive and rigid speaker stands are much in vogue today, precipitated by the desire to minimize relative motion of the speaker and listener. I have largely overcome this relative motion by mounting the speaker stands directly into the granitic bedrock underlying the listening building. An expanse of about two acres of solid granite was selected as the site for the listening building and all topsoil was removed from the area. Four mounting holes for the stands of each speaker were then drilled to a depth of seven feet into the bedrock and stainless steel supports were press fit into the drill holes. Glues and cements were rejected as interfering with coupling of the stands and bedrock; instead, the supports were cooled to cryogenic temperatures to shrink them. Expansion locked the supports in place as they warmed to room temperature. Speakers sit atop the supports on diamond points. I am currently contemplating the use of large counterweights from a drawbridge to clamp the speakers securely to the supports.

            Despite the considerable attention given to speaker movement, no provisions have heretofore been made for isolating the listener's head. As "all motion is relative", I elected to purchase a head and jaw clamp assembly from a retiring brain surgeon. This is mounted to bedrock as described above and provides a secure and stable support for the listener's head. An ancillary benefit is that it completely prevents any jaw motion during serious listening, thereby eliminating changes in the shape of the ear canal documented by psychoacoustic studies.

reading through this thread i did not see any mention of 'active isolation'.

passive isolation/decoupling can get the job done in most situations, which was where i was at. then I switched speaker systems to a 2 tower system which was -3db at 7hz and -6db at 3hz. and this bass tower was 6 feet from my turntable. it took me a couple of months to understand that the sudden occurrence of noticeable groove distortion on female vocals, cello's, and other previously wonderful passages was feedback from these massive 750 pound, 7 foot tall bass towers.

so I purchased 2 different Herzan TS active platforms. a TS-150 for my preamp and digital and a TS-140 for my Wave Kinetics NVS turntable. http://http//www.herzan.com/products/active-vibration-control/ts-series.html

since active isolation needs a grounded rack with zero compliance and some mass loading I also switched my rack system to the Adona GTX.

active devices are stiff and very fast. they use piezoelectric sensors and actuators, and sense resonance and compensate for it. and that happens in real time. they are designed primarily for using electron microscopes in laboratory conditions. which happens to be the same job we need done for our electronics. the feedback from music and background hash of reality needs to be eliminated from our reproduction chain so it does not overlay our music.

passive devices settle and overshoot since they are soft. an active device is stiff since they can stop and start. active is 500x stiffer than passive devices. they can attenuate noise down to .5hz. there is a graphical display on the side of the Herzan TS platforms that displays noise in horizontal lines that is being attenuated. if you clap your hands you will see the lines get squiggly and get sensed and compensated for. it's that sensitive. these active devices are built to also auto level. when you turn them on they first level the top platform. after that they just do their thing.

while not cheap to buy, when combined with a modestly priced grounded rack they are not much more costly than the more spendy racks used by many audiophiles and in the context of uber systems they are sensible products. and science and industry proves that they really work.

any system will get a boost with an active shelf since they objectively out-perform any passive device. period. OTOH some systems and specific situations actually 'need' active to solve specific problems like I had.

ive had both my Herzan's for 4 years now and they have been flawless. they bring a level of nuance and solidity to the music in the ultra dynamic system that must be heard to be believed. coherence on musical peaks at warp 9 is outstanding and allows the music to have an ease and authority not otherwise possible. they do require a good foundation ideally; I have 6 inches of concrete as my floor. a suspended wood floor might compromise an active device as it would be continually compensating for the sensed compliance and burn out.

Andrew,

yes; for a few reasons the active isolation does yield a greater payoff on the vinyl. obviously the most significant issue is the mechanical nature of the stylus in the groove and so the delta of improvement is greatest, then you have simply more information and nuance from the vinyl so further to take things. the true payoff has to do with a sort of spooky level of ’suspension of disbelief’ that happens with voice, cellos, piano’s......or musical peaks.....you hear farther into the music. decays and ambient information seems unlimited. like a light turned on rendering more info on familiar tracks. and at spots of musical peaks where you might otherwise cringe expecting things to get hard and edgy the music just sails thru with ease. this retains the musical flow with large scale music which tends to make you play more of it.

the more dynamic and vivid the pressing the greater the degree of improvement. direct to disc pressings seem to particularly benefit.

digital dacs do benefit, while silver disc playing benefits even more (again, a mechanical process).

obviously the better the passive isolation that it replaces the less the improvement that is heard. there are some very good passive devices out there.

and at spots of musical peaks where you might otherwise cringe expecting things to get hard and edgy the music just sails thru with ease. this retains the musical flow with large scale music which tends to make you play more of it.

the more dynamic and vivid the pressing the greater the degree of improvement. direct to disc pressings seem to particularly benefit.